The Day Music Died: Holly, Valens, and Bopper Fall
A plane crash in a cornfield outside Clear Lake, Iowa, killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. 'The Big Bopper' Richardson, and pilot Roger Peterson on February 3, 1959. Holly had chartered the small Beechcraft Bonanza because the tour bus's heater was broken and he wanted to do laundry before the next show. Valens won his seat on a coin toss with Tommy Allsup. The Big Bopper talked Waylon Jennings out of his seat because he had the flu. Peterson, a 21-year-old with limited instrument flight experience, flew into a snowstorm and likely became disoriented. The plane crashed at full speed three miles from the airport. Holly was twenty-two. Valens was seventeen. Don McLean's 1971 song 'American Pie' named it 'the day the music died,' a phrase that stuck permanently. The crash ended the first golden age of rock and roll and scattered its surviving artists into uncertainty.
February 3, 1959
67 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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